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Whitney Wolfe Breaks New Ground with Bumble

Whitney Wolfe is the founder of Bumble, which is the fastest growing dating site in America. She partnered with the founder of Badoo, who contacted her about starting a new venture together. In 2014 the company was launched and Whitney Wolfe was named founder and CEO. She was recognized as one of Business Insider’s 30 most important women in the year of 2014 as well. She is a leading figure in Tech and has received acknowledgement from Elle Magazine and Forbes.

Whitney Wolfe is originally from South Salt Lake City Utah. She attended Southern Methodist University and majored in International Studies. Whitney started her first business at the age of 19. She created a concept for selling bamboo tote bags for BP Oil spill victims. Celebrity stylist Patrick Aufdenkamp partnered with Wolfe on the project which became a nonprofit success known as “The Help Us” project. Celebrities including Nicole Richie was seen with the bags which gave them a great deal of notoriety.

Andrey Andreev contacted Wolfe about starting a new dating site concept. Andrey is the founder of Badoo, which is the world’s largest company in the industry. Andreev initially offered Wolfe a job. However, he clearly could see that she was not interested in working for anyone. They soon began talking about a project together. Whitney Wolfe made several visits from Austin Texas to London to iron out the details of the new enterprise.

They agreed on a concept that gave women a different type of option than the other dating sites on the market. Bumble would be set in place so that only the woman could initiate the conversation once a match is made. Andrey agreed to offer the tremendous resources of Badoo to Whitney Wolfe in order to support her business. He came in as the majority owner leaving Wolfe with the remaining 20% ownership plus the full authority to run the company and make decisions.

Bumble maintains its headquarters in Austin Texas and it is a major attraction among locals and tourists. Eighty-five percent of the 70 employees at bumble are women. These positions include many of the high-profile jobs. The office post empowering slogans such as, “You are a Queen,” “Be the CEO your parents always wanted you to marry,” and “Make the first move.” These terms are designed to support the objective of Bumble as a dating site that gives leverage to the female gender.